Psychophysiological correlates of inquiry and advocacy in human interactions Ilkka Leppänen Raimo P. Hämäläinen Esa Saarinen Mikko Viinikainen Systems Analysis Laboratory Aalto University, Finland

What are the consequences of being positive (inquiry) or negative (advocacy)? Background: –Organizational learning theory (Argyris & Schön 1978, Senge 1990): balance inquiry and advocacy –Systems intelligence theory (Hämäläinen & Saarinen 2004, 2008): positive engagements improve team performance Emotions in organizations 2

Improve organizational behavior and decision making by understanding emotions at the psychophysiological level Research focus 3

Assert, be narrow and aggressive, explain own points of view Inquiry Advocacy Ask questions, be open, explore and show interest in other’s points of view 4

Theory and behavioral experiments –Mason (1969), Schweiger, Sandberg & Rechner (1989), Schwenk (1990), Valacich & Schwenk (1995) Have shown that adopting both inquiry and advocacy modes improve decisions –Higher number of possible solutions –Better quality decisions –Higher satisfaction with outcomes Inquiry and advocacy in group decision making 5

Emotional correlates of inquiry and advocacy Psychophysiological measurements –Emotional expressions: Duchenne smile, non-Duchenne smile, furrowed brows –Emotional arousal: sympathetic ANS activation –Emotional empathy questionnaire Our experiment 6

Inquiry elicits Duchenne smiles Advocacy elicits furrowed brows Emotional arousal level is different between inquiry and advocacy Empathy is related to a high frequency of expressions and a high level of arousal Our hypotheses 7

Emotional expressions: electromyography (EMG) from 3 muscle regions on the left hemisphere of face Psychophysiological measurements Emotional arousal: skin conductance response (SCR) from left hand fingers 8

Setup Dimly lit room Comfortable chair Stimulus shown on a computer screen Inquiry: take an inquisitive approach on the statements of the persons shown on the screen Advocacy: be critical and if possible, form objections to the statements of the persons shown on the screen Hunting is a great hobby We should abandon nuclear power 9

Subjects N = 40, M age = 34.6, 22—61 years Exclusions from data-analysis: 7 excluded because they failed to understand task (post-experiment questionnaire) 6 excluded from SCR analysis because they did not show the signal 10

In each treatment the subjects are shown photographs with statements. This is the stimuli. Tasks: –Inquiry: view the stimuli in an inquiry mode (series of 26 stimuli) –Break 1 min –Advocacy: view the stimuli in an advocacy mode (series of same 26 stimuli) –Break 1 min –Neutral: view the stimuli in a neutral mode (series of same 26 stimuli) Each stimulus shown for 18 s with 5 s breaks in between Order of stimuli in the series randomized in each treatment Order of inquiry/advocacy randomized for each subject, neutral treatment always last Baseline measurement before the treatments, duration 5 min Total measurement duration 38 min Stimuli and treatments 11

baseline (5 min) inquiry (10 min)advocacy (10 min) neutral (10 min) 26 photographs with statements 18 s5 s18 s5 s In randomized order in each treatment randomized order Stimuli and treatments

A B C A: Corrugator supercilii – contracts the eyebrow B: Orbicularis oculi – wrinkles the eye C: Zygomaticus major – raises the cheek EMG electrode placements 13

2048-Hz signal filtered to Hz, smoothed, logarithmized Signal during stimulus averaged into 3 s bins Bin scored active if bin mean > baseline mean Bin count = sum of active bins EMG score processing 14

Furrowed brow: only corrugator active in a bin Duchenne smile: orbicularis and zygomaticus active in a bin Non-duchenne: only zygomaticus active in a bin 15

SCR has 2 components: tonic and phasic Phasic is of interest, corresponds to sudomotor nerve firing at ≈.62 Hz 128-Hz signal down-sampled by half and smoothed, deconvoluted to extract the phasic component, integrated in a 17 s window and logarithmized => ISCR score –Benedek & Kaernbach (2010) – (Matlab add-on) SCR score processing 16

Mehrabian & Epstein (1972) Empathy: sharing the emotional experience of others Before the experiment, 33 item questionnaire –“I makes me sad to see a lonely stranger in a group” –“Some songs make me happy” => Empathy score 0 – 100 Emotional empathy questionnaire 17

Linear mixed models (LMM) with subjects as random effects Treatments as deviation coded contrasts Ref. treatment (neutral) level not shown, moved to zero Error bars = SEM Duchenne smiles in inquiry 18

The difference between inquiry and advocacy is not significant (LMM, p =.79) => The non-Duchenne smile is not differentially activated in inquiry and advocacy Non-Duchennes in both inquiry and advocacy 19

More furrowed brows in advocacy Less furrowed brows in inquiry This is a known pattern of corrugator activation (Larsen et al. 2003) Furrowed brows show reciprocal effect 20

Arousal is significantly higher in inquiry than in advocacy (LMM, p <.0001) Is arousal only related to the smiles? Arousal in both inquiry and advocacy 21

Arousal level clearly corresponds to the smiles but not to furrowed brows Arousal as function of the expressions 22

Subjects with higher empathy scores express more Duchenne smiles (p =.014) Others expressions or arousal are not significantly related to empathy Empathy is related to Duchennes 23

First study on the psychophysiological correlates of inquiry and advocacy modes of interaction Inquiry elicits positive emotions (Duchenne smiles) and advocacy elicits negative emotions (furrowed brows) Emotional arousal is higher in inquiry than in advocacy and related to positive emotions More empathetic subjects have more positive emotions Summary 24

Future research Psychophysiological correlates of inquiry and advocacy in real behavior: –Interactive situations –Decision making –Trust and cooperation –Role of empathy 25

References Argyris, C., & Schön, D.A. (1978). Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective, Addison-Wesley. Benedek, M., & Kaernbach, C. (2010). A continuous measure of phasic electrodermal activity. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 190, 80 – 91. Hämäläinen, R.P. & Saarinen, E. (2004). Systems Intelligence – Discovering a Hidden Competence in Human Action and Organizational Life, Helsinki University of Technology, Systems Analysis Laboratory, Research Reports A88. Hämäläinen, R.P. & Saarinen, E. (2008). Systems intelligence: the way forward? A note on Ackoff's ‘why few organizations adopt systems thinking’. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 25, 821 – 825. Larsen, J.T., Norris, C.J., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2003). Effects of positive and negative affect on electromyographic activity over zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii. Psychophysiology 40, 776 – 785. Mason, R.O. (1969). A dialectical approach to strategic planning. Management Science 15, B403 – B

References Mehrabian, A. & Epstein, N. (1972). A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of Personality 40, 525 – 543. Schweiger, D.M., Sandberg, W.R., & Rechner, P.L. (1989). Experiential effects of dialectical inquiry, devil’s advocacy, and consensus approaches to strategic decision making. Academy of Management Journal 32, 745 – 772. Schwenk, C.R. (1990). Effects of devil’s advocacy and dialectical inquiry on decision making: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 47, 161 – 176. Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Random House. Valacich, J.S., & Schwenk, C. (1995). Devil’s advocacy and dialectical inquiry effects on face-to-face and computer mediated group decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 63, 158 –